Low-wage workers in the states

Janelle Jones and I have a short post at the CEPR blog with information on the educational attainment of low-wage workers in the 50 states and the District of Columbia.

The chart below, from the CEPR blog, shows the share of low-wage workers in each state that have at least some college education (including those with two-year, four-year, and advanced degrees), in the early 1980s (the diamonds) and in the most recent three-year period (the arrow heads). Low-wage workers are defined as earning $10.00 or less per hour (in inflation-adjusted 2011 dollars).

In every state low-wage workers are much better educated today than they were three decades ago.